F1 Cost Cap Criticized as Engineers Face Salary Cuts

A former Red Bull engineer reveals how F1’s strict budget cap fuels underpaid positions, leaving teams struggling to retain top talent.

Let’s recall that the budget cap now enforces strict limitations on F1 team spending—despite the sport’s high profitability. Naturally, personnel expenses, the largest cost category, have been affected… except for the top 3 highest salaries, which are excluded from the budget cap.

This may understandably fuel resentment among the 4th, 5th, and lower-ranked salaries.

So, where do things stand today? F1 has become a passion-driven job. That means a job for enthusiasts, of course… but also an underpaid job. And this comes with an increasing number of Grands Prix.

Blake Hinsey, a former senior simulator engineer at Red Bull and former performance engineer at Force India, has fired a harsh criticism of F1 salaries.

The Oxford graduate explains why he left F1 in 2021 (and a prestigious role in Milton Keynes) to join endurance racing and IMSA, where he now works as a race engineer for Wayne Taylor Racing.

“Do you want to know how much of a mistake F1’s cost cap is?” he asks.

“People within the sport won’t talk about it because they can’t. So, I will!”

“I just had an informal conversation with a recruiter about a race engineer position in F1. Their MAXIMUM salary was lower than what I earned last year working part-time as a performance engineer in WEC with an LMDh team.”

For Hinsey, teams are far from concerned about the damage done to their employees… because financially, they are clearly benefiting.

“Why don’t team bosses push harder for an increase in the cost cap to account for rising living costs and inflation? Oh yes… because for profitable teams, it’s likely that bosses and shareholders pocket a large portion of what they don’t spend.”

“Reach out to your favorite F1 journalist and try to get them to ask this question at the next press conference—I’m sure they can phrase it better than I did.”

“The F1 ship has sailed for me—I have no interest in joining a 24-race calendar. I stopped at 21 races because I wanted a life. I love endurance racing now. I can do far more than I ever could in F1, whether at the track or in a factory, and I enjoy the challenge. But it also frustrates me that the FOM, FIA, and teams are ruining the sport (along with many of my friends) ‘because it’s F1.’”

“I can’t pay my mortgage with prestige. Let’s see what happens, but I don’t see teams or the FIA having any incentives to do anything about it.”

In his view, the situation is becoming urgent, as F1 teams, despite the sport’s prestige, are now struggling to attract top talent.

“There are plenty of people who want to work in F1, of course. Just like there are plenty of people who want to be unicorns, but that won’t happen. Teams are already struggling to attract the right staff. That’s a fact based on conversations with experienced engineers and technical recruiters.”